The public is becoming ever increasingly aware of their individual physical fitness. Often, from a medical standpoint, an individual's state of fitness may be assessed by blood pressure, cholesterol levels, at rest heart rate and the like. These measurements, when compared to a suggested standard or range relative to that person's age and sex, can indicate a person's physical fitness and suggest certain lifestyle changes to increase the state of their fitness. Typically, except for heart rate, the values of cholesterol and such are not indexed for age.
It would be useful if a system and method were developed which could measure certain physical parameters and, from those measurements, determine an individual's effective, fitness age. That is, if a person is sixty years old, the parameters measured may enable an assessment to be made that the person has an effective age, or fitness age, of 45. Thus, because of the measurement of these parameters, this hypothetical individual is "younger" than his chronological age. This information would be useful to an individual to provide guidelines to measure the improvements and declines in the person's overall physical fitness period. This information would also be useful from an insurance assessment standpoint to determine the individual's risk and therefore the premiums to be charged. Corporate organizations could use the information to provide guidelines for a corporate wellness program.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an article, system and method to assess the physical condition of an individual. It is also an object of the present invention to provide, based upon the measurement of certain physical parameters, a system, method and article to determine the individual's overall fitness age which may be the same as, less than, or greater than their chronological age.